Category Archives: Quantitative

The Julia Language is the Way of the Future

Posted on 2016/03/31 by Sam

Recent surveys have shown that the R Language for statistical computing is undergoing an explosion in popularity among scientists, researchers, and other data-analyzing types. There are good reasons for this: R is Free, easy to use (as much as any … Continue reading →

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Do not flip-flop variables to make them work in your #@%*^& ANOVA

Posted on 2015/02/25 by Sam

I was reading a paper this morning. It included a perversion of a common statistical analysis that is fundamentally wrong, utterly unneccesary, and has an easy solution. This perversion, unfortunately, is also distressingly common. Inspired by O’Hara and Kotze’s 2010 … Continue reading →

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Must it be Santa? A case study in Bayesian updating

Posted on 2014/12/24 by Sam

Ah, Christmas eve. A magical day when we reflect on the deep questions. Is there anything more valuable than family togetherness? What is the true meaning of the season? Who is that strange man breaking into my house at 2:00 … Continue reading →

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Rossby Waves

Posted on 2011/06/23 by Sam

I was reading a paper recently that mentioned Rossby waves. I had vague memories of learning about these things when I took Physical Oceanography as an undergrad, but that was a was five years ago, and I didn’t really understand … Continue reading →

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A Very Short Introduction to Time Series

Posted on 2011/05/01 by Sam

Last week, I gave a presentation on the basics of time series statistics to an informal group of students in biology, forestry, and fisheries who meet every week to share tips and talk over problems involving statistics and R. A … Continue reading →

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DIY Scale Dependence

Posted on 2011/04/14 by Sam

What’s the big deal about “scale?” It’s a word that I’ve written about before here, and one that certain types of ecologists can’t seem to stop talking about. But it can be an infuratingly vague word to pin down, given … Continue reading →

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Queensland Rain: Quick ‘n’ Dirty Climatology

Posted on 2011/01/18 by Sam

My last post, on the connection between the equatorial Pacific Ocean and the floods in Eastern Australia, closed with a graph of the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) over the past 40 years, and with an assertion that major rains and … Continue reading →

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